Manny Pacquiao spars with trainer Freddie Roach during his workout at Wild Card Boxing Club in April / Jayne Kamin-Oncea USA TODAY Sports

by Bob Velin, USA TODAY Sports

by Bob Velin, USA TODAY Sports

As a six-time trainer of the year, member of boxing's Hall of Fame and tutor of at least three current world champions, most notably Manny Pacquiao, Freddie Roach never has to worry about not getting enough attention.

Everybody , it seems, wants a piece of Roach's time. Like the woman who came to his bustling Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles the other day.

"This lady from Singapore came in and said, 'It doesn't matter what it costs, I'll pay anything, all you have to do is (spend) one day (training) with my son. I said, 'I wish I could help you but it's a time thing. It's not money. I don't care about the money. I just don't have time right now to do that.' "

That sums up Roach's life these days. So many fighters, so little time.

Consider this: Roach spent March and part of April training his prized student, Manny Pacquiao, for his rematch against Timothy Bradley. Pacquiao, 35, regained his WBO welterweight title in that fight.

Then Roach immediately turned his attention to his newest pupil, Miguel Cotto, for his pay-per-view middleweight title bout at Madison Square Garden last weekend against Sergio Martinez.

Cotto was superb in knocking Martinez down four times en route to a 10th-round stoppage and the lineal middleweight title. He credited Roach, saying, "Michael Jordan wouldn't have been as successful without Scottie Pippen. Freddie is my Scottie Pippen."

On Saturday, he crosses the Brooklyn Bridge, where his third world champion, Ruslan Provodnikov (23-2, 16 KOs), puts his WBO light welterweight title on the line against New Yorker Chris Algieri (19-0, 8 KOs) at Brooklyn's Barclays Center (HBO, 10 p.m. ET).

"From this fight, I'm heading over to China pretty soon with (two-time Chinese Olympic gold medalist) Zou Shiming," Roach told USA TODAY Sports in a phone interview. "He's going to fight in (Macau, in July), and Manny is going to fight in China, maybe in November. If that happens, training camp is going to be eight weeks in the Philippines, and it's going to be pretty time-consuming."

Such is the hectic but happy globe-trotting life of arguably the best and unquestionably the most famous boxing trainer on the planet.

Roach, who has trained everyone from Mike Tyson to former UFC superstar Georges St-Pierre to actor Mickey Rourke, even newest Hall of Famer Oscar De La Hoya (for one fight against Mayweather in 2007), loves his current group.

"Actually I think I have the best stable of my life right now," he says. "Those three (Pacquiao, Cotto and Provodnikov), I got Frankie Gomez (17-0, 13 KOs) coming up and he's on fire, I've got Zou Shiming (4-0, 1 KO) from China, and he's getting better and better. He'll be a world champion, I think, in two fights.

"I just got a bunch of great guys right now, they work hard, they help each other, it's a great atmosphere being in the gym with all that talent. I'm just really, really happy with these guys right now. Going to work is so much fun when you have talent like this."

Roach also had former champion Julio Cesar Chavez among his stable for a time, too, but after his unanimous loss to Martinez in Sept. 2012, the trainer and fighter parted ways.

"He was becoming a really good fighter and people actually compared him to his dad," Roach said. "But in that Martinez fight something really went wrong. And I really can't put my finger on it because we're good friends and we talk all the time, but the working relationship was just not working."

"For my first three fights with Chavez, he never said no. He was like the best student in the world for three fights. Then the Martinez fight, for some reason, I don't know if he got scared, or what, but he only showed up for five days of training camp. When you saw me waiting for him on HBO that one time, well, that happened 31 times."

A victory by the heavily favored Provodnikov on Saturday could put Roach in an awkward position not far down the road.

That's when Provodnikov, the Siberian slugger, and Pacquiao, among the top three pound-for-pound fighters in the world, could face one another, perhaps after Pacquiao's next fight in November.

"That's a possibility because Ruslan needs that big fight, you know, and it could happen," Roach said.

Roach obviously would not relish such a matchup, but said, "Ruslan needs to make money, just like everybody else. He's not making (as much) with Algieri as he would make against Pacquiao, so I would have to let him do that. That's what his team wants, that big fight. And it may happen sooner than we think."

There's no doubt about whose corner Roach would be in if that fight came to pass.

"Yeah, Manny is my guy, we've been together for a long, long time," he said, "and the thing is, we always hoped the Mayweather (fight) would happen. I'm glad him and (Cotto) have grown out of each other's weight classes, so that's not going to happen.

"Ruslan doesn't want to do it, but he knows he has to so he can secure his family for the rest of his life. He's the type of guy who's going to have a shorter career than Pacquiao because Ruslan is a give-and-take type of guy, and give-and-take type guys like me don't really have long careers. (Roach retired at 26 after some brutal bouts among his 53 fights).

"They usually have good, short ones, and he realizes and sees that."

Roach, 54, left the sport reluctantly, but with symptoms of Parkinson's Disease at a young age, and he now battles the disease. Working out with his fighters daily has helped slow the progression, Roach said.

"Rigidity is the key," he said. "You know, people slow down and let it take over. I refuse to do that. I work my ass off every day. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and don't feel so good. But once I get to the gym everything's OK.

"So, boxing maybe gave me this, but it's going to help me maintain myself because I feel great. The tremors come every once in a while and that reminds me I have to take my medication, but other than that, I feel great."